William Browder is sworn-in before a continuation of Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 27, 2017Credit:
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A British financier and arch critic of Vladimir Putin has been placed under criminal investigation in Russia over a "trumped up" allegation that he was behind the poisoning of a whistleblower who collapsed and died in Surrey.

The inquiry was opened in December, four days after Mr Browder succeeded in persuading the European Union to adopt powerful legislation that allows authorities to bring sanctions against corrupt Russian officials.

In retaliation, Mr Browder was accused of orchestrating the murder of Alexander Perepilichnyy, a Russian businessman who had fled to the UK and handed documents detailing high level corruption to Mr Browder.

Mr Perepilichnyy, who had been subjected to Kremlin death threats, collapsed and died after going for a jog. There have been suggestions that he was poisoned with gelsemium elegans, a plant toxin used by Russian and Chinese assassins.

Mr Browder said: “Putin has completely lost the plot and is throwing absurd murder accusations at me like they were candy. His officials don’t even bother to try to make the allegations look credible any more.”

Mr Browder pushed through the Magnitsky Act in the US after his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten in a Russian cell. He later died following maltreatment. The Magnitsky Act allowed US authorities to place sanctions on Russians linked to the death. Mr Browder said the timing of the criminal inquiry against him Was significant, having been launched on December 14, just days after the EU backed its own version of the Magnitsky Act.

Mr Browder told the Telegraph: “While it’s never nice to have Putin as an enemy, I take some pride in the fact that the Magnitsky Act is so devastating that it’s caused Putin to publicly lose his cool in such an embarrassing way.”

In July, Mr Putin revived Russia’s longstanding crusade against Mr Browser and the Magnitsky Act by bringing up the investor after a summit in Helsinki with Donald Trump. Moscow could let American investigators into Russia to look into election meddling if Washington let the Russians question Browder.

The investigative committee is one of Russia’s most powerful law enforcement agencies, outweighing the prosecutor’s office, and often takes the lead on initiating cases. It is run by Alexander Bastrykin, a former classmate of Mr Putin. According to Mr Browder, Mr Bastrykin’s office has a 99.5 per cent conviction rate with only 0.5 per cent of cases - one in 200 - ending in acquittal.

Mr Browder’s lawyer based in Russia was summoned to see the ‘criminal decree’ but not allowed to photocopy it. He was, however, able to take a handwritten note. The decree accuses Mr Browder of being involved in a 5.4 billion rouble ‘embezzlement’ and claimed Mr Perepilichnyy, who died in 2012, “possessed information” of that financial crime.

The indictment goes on: “It is logical to consider that Mr William F Browder and his unidentified co-conspirators with an aim to conceal the embezzlement committed a murder of Mr Perepilichnyy by poisoning him with a herbal poisoning of gelsemium (elegans).”

The Russian investigators conclude there is “substantial evidence” for opening a criminal inquiry on the basis “of committing a crime against a Russian citizen”.